our friend Elinor now stands invested with the dignity of an
heiress, accompanied by the dangers, pleasures, and annoyances,
usually surrounding an unmarried woman, possessing the reputation
of a fortune. Wherever Elinor now appeared, the name of a fortune
procured her attention; the plain face which some years before
had caused her to be neglected where she was not intimately
known, was no longer an obstacle to the gallantry of the very
class who had shunned her before. Indeed, the want of beauty,
which might have been called her misfortune, was now the very
ground on which several of her suitors founded their hopes of
success; as she was pronounced so very plain, the dandies thought
it impossible she could resist the charm of their own personal
advantages. Elinor had, in short, her full share of those
persecutions which are sure to befall all heiresses. The peculiar
evils of such a position affect young women very differently,
according to their various dispositions. Had Elinor been weak and
vain, she would have fallen into the hands of a fortune-hunter.
Had she been of a gloomy temper, disgust at the coarse plots and
manoeuvres, so easily unravelled by a clear-sighted person, might
have made her a prey to suspicion, and all but misanthropic. Had
she been vulgar-minded, she would have been purse-proud; if
cold-hearted, she would have become only the more selfish. Vanity
would have made her ridiculously ostentatious and conceited; a
jealous temper would have become self-willed and domineering.

Change of position often produces an apparent change of
character; sometimes the effect is injurious, sometimes it is
advantageous. But we trust that the reader, on renewing his
acquaintance with Elinor Wyllys, will find her, while flattered
by the world as an heiress, essentially the same in character and